Monday, April 13, 2020
Plenty.
Dear Ones,
What happens when there is a lot, when there is plenty? I often get mired in indecision. If there were only two songs,* like it seemed to me, late at night, listening, many years ago, to the radio, I would always be able to recall them.
If there were only four books, four stories, I would be able to tell you them by heart. I would tell you my favorite and never waver.
What am I thinking, feeling, in this landscape of plenty? I am thinking I am in no particular hurry, and trying to grasp the thought, the emotion, that is just out of my reach. It feels unknown to me; like a new wildflower, and I can't find it in my field guide. It isn't quite fear, or sorrow, and I don't think it is lonliness, it's more of a void than all of that. It feels like maybe we came to the edge of that flat earth that doesn't exist, and we knew, in just a few more steps, that we would be seeing over the edge, into the unknown.
It was like a string of pearls, this life, all tied in a line of time, and now it has broken all over the room, and pearls are rolling and scattering into corners they will never be retrieved from. The best you could do, is to gather up what you can find and put it into a bowl, where they have a completely different relationship to each other. They are a heap, there is no hierarchy, no beginning, no end, no middle; just an unstrung dish full.
When I am not thinking of these unstrung pearls and the shadowy specter of uncertainty, I remember that I wanted to send you these songs that were made as a response to Marty Robbins' El Paso. They are your five songs for today.
* Song One & Song Two. Song One is part of a trilogy- here is Part Two, and Part Three.
